2012-13 JOHN NEAR GRANT Recipient - OpenScholar · 2012-13 JOHN NEAR GRANT Recipient ... would like to acknowledge Ms. Susan Smith of The Harker School Libraries for ... His entire

2012-13 JOHN NEAR GRANT Recipient

Aaron Copland’s El Salón México and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story: Twentieth Century Musical Manifestations of

the Impact of Hispanics on the United States’ Sociopolitical Stage

Ashvin Anand Swaminathan, Class of 2013

Aaron Copland’s El Salón México and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story: Twentieth Century Musical Manifestations of the Impact of Hispanics on the United States’ Sociopolitical Stage

Ashvin Anand Swaminathan

John Near Scholar Paper Ms. Nace, Ms. Smith, Mentors

April 12, 2013

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Ms. Susan Nace of The Harker School for sharing her

expertise on the relationship between twentieth century America’s musical and sociopolitical

climates and for providing comprehensive feedback on the content of this paper. The author

would like to acknowledge Ms. Susan Smith of The Harker School Libraries for pointing him to

numerous resources, from external library facilities to historical newspaper databases, and for

assisting him in crafting a succinct thesis in this paper.

The author would like to thank Dr. Susan Key, formerly of the San Francisco Symphony,

and Professor Howard Pollack of the University of Houston for providing the author, through

numerous personal communications, with valuable information regarding the extent to which

Aaron Copland and his music could be described as political.

The author would like to gratefully acknowledge Mr. Donato Cabrera, Resident

Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and Wattis Foundation Music Director of the San

Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, Ms. Diane Nicholeris, a violinist in the symphony, and

Mr. Jason Pyszkowski, manager of the youth orchestra, for inspiring the author to conduct

research on Copland’s El Salón México and for providing him with resources relevant to this

research.

The author would also like to thank his history teachers at The Harker School, Dr. Ruth

Meyer, Mr. Mark Janda, Ms. Julie Wheeler, and Ms. Donna Gilbert, for inspiring the author to

pursue the study of history beyond the scholastic level. Finally, the author would like to

acknowledge The Harker School and the John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment

for providing him with the opportunity and resources required to perform this research.

Swaminathan 3

Artists delineate their experiences with and responses to their sociopolitical backgrounds

through their artistic creations, whether or not they choose to publicize their political leanings. It

is therefore not surprising that elements of twentieth century United States’ turbulent political

climate can be discovered in the music of the cautious Aaron Copland (1900-1990) and the

comparatively outspoken Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), two of the nation’s preeminent

composers. In particular, Copland’s 1936 symphonic work El Salón México may be viewed as an

artistic reaction to the contemporaneous Mexican Repatriation, and Bernstein’s 1957 musical

West Side Story must be taken as a politically overt response to the youth gang violence that

plagued New York City throughout the 1950s.1

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, widespread unemployment brought about

strong anti-immigrant attitudes among U.S. citizens who considered immigrants a threat to their

economic security, and as a result, ethnic groups of foreign origin were illegally targeted for

deportation. The forceful banishment of Mexican Americans irrespective of their status as U.S.

citizens came to be known as the Mexican Repatriation of the 1930s, a time period that coincides

with many of Copland’s visits to Mexico and with his writing of El Salón México.2 Just twenty

years later, the deconstruction of Puerto Rico’s agrarian economy and the devaluation of its

currency forced many Puerto Ricans to embark on a mass migration, facilitated by the rising

affordability of air travel, to mainland U.S. cities, where they hoped to take advantage of the

booming urban economy of post-World-War-II United States.3 Nonetheless, these economic

benefits came at a cost for the Puerto Rican immigrants, as they faced racial discrimination and,

consequently, ethnic gang violence among youths who were confined to tenement life.4

Believing that “art and politics were interconnected” and desiring to unite people of all

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ethnicities and social strata, Bernstein crafted West Side Story as a means of bringing teenage

gang violence and urban decay to the attention of his fellow citizens.5

With the sociopolitical context of the 1930s in mind, it is only natural to expect that El

Salón México serves as a musical manifestation of the internal conflicts that may have occurred

between Copland’s leftist ideals and the events of the Mexican Repatriation itself, in spite of his

tendency to “[mask] his feelings” and his political inclinations.6 On the other hand, West Side

Story is quite clearly representative of Bernstein’s “open-mouthed activism” and his desire to

establish “what he felt was right” as regards politics.7 What is perhaps most interesting, however,

about El Salón México and West Side Story is that each work serves to emphasize the message

conveyed in the other, even though Copland’s piece lacks the obvious political intensity of

Bernstein’s musical. Because El Salón México was a noteworthy source of inspiration for

Bernstein in his writing of West Side Story, the openly political themes accentuated in

Bernstein’s “Great American Opera” are, to some extent, magnifications of the subtle leftist

undertones that pervade Copland’s “American Bolero.”8 Furthermore, when viewed in light of

his warm response to El Salón México, Bernstein’s West Side Story becomes the fruit of

developments that he made to Copland’s original idea of providing Hispanic Americans with a

musical identity in the face of discrimination.

The Mexican Repatriation of 1930s United States

The violence associated with the Mexican Revolution and the civil wars that plagued

Mexico throughout the early 1900s induced tens of thousands of Mexicans (as many as 90,000 in

1924) to move to the United States each year.9 The drastic diminution of the U.S. labor force

triggered by World War I created a demand for cheap labor in the United States that the newly

immigrated Mexicans were willing to satisfy by taking up jobs in the mining, railroad, and

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agricultural industries.10 Although the United States’ numerous Mexican immigrants were

instrumental in ensuring the growth of domestic production, these same immigrants came to be

targets for vehement nativist opposition as a result of the economic instability and uncertainty

that characterized the 1930s Great Depression time period.

In response to the Dust Bowl, a man-made environmental disaster that crippled the U.S.

agricultural economy during the 1930s, many farmers moved from the desiccated farmlands of

the Midwest to the fertile farmlands of California.11 About 1.3 million white Americans moved

to California from many states in the Midwest and Southwest, raising California’s population by

23% to about seven million during the Great Depression.12 The stiff competition that inevitably

rose up between Mexican immigrant and Midwestern workers for low-paying jobs brought about

severe cuts in wages.13 Because U.S. citizens regarded people of foreign origin as a threat to their

job opportunities, the 75% of California farm laborers who were of Mexican descent were

exposed to significant racial discrimination regardless of their citizenship.14

Attempting to lessen the severity of agricultural job competition for the newly arrived

white Midwestern laborers, the San Diego County Supervisors ordered in 1930 that both

Mexican immigrants and U.S. citizens of Mexican descent be denied contracts for working on

civic projects.15 This legislative response was not, however, limited to the situation in California,

for in the same year, Senator William J. Harris of Georgia introduced the Harris Bill, which

stipulated that Mexican immigration to the United States be subject to a quota system as a means

of preventing Mexicans from taking up jobs that could be saved for whites. Although the Harris

Bill failed to find common ground between the House and the Senate and thus did not pass, it is

noteworthy that the suggested legislation found support in spite of the failure of the 1926 Box

Bill, which, like the Harris Bill, was intended to restrict Mexican immigration through the use of

Swaminathan 6

quotas.16 Moreover, William N. Doak, who was appointed as the Secretary of Labor in 1930 by

President Herbert Hoover, also believed that the elimination of aliens would open up jobs for

white Americans. In 1931, Doak tried to solve the unemployment problem by ordering raids to

remove “undesirable aliens” from U.S. lands.17 Even though Doak did not specify the ethnicities

of the aliens he considered “undesirable,” local governments throughout the American Southwest

deported people of Mexican descent, even those who were U.S. citizens, back to Mexico.18 In the

same year, Charles P. Visel of the Los Angeles Citizens Committee for Coordination of

Unemployment Relief urged the Federal government to allow him to use police to enforce

Mexican deportation and thereby facilitate Doak’s raids.19 A cogent example of the blind

brutality of these police raids can be found in the case of Ignacio Pina, a now retired railroad

worker from California. His entire family was expelled from Montana in 1931, when armed

plainclothes officials barged into their home and “told [them] to get out” without even giving

them a chance to bring their “trunk that held birth certificates proving that he and his five

siblings were U.S.-born citizens.”20 More than two million Mexican Americans, including 1.2

million legal U.S. citizens, like Pina, were deported to Mexico between 1929 and 1944.21 The

banished population suffered numerous tribulations, for many were forced to sell all of their

possessions to cover travel expenses, were separated from their families, and were illegally

imprisoned and tortured.22

Aaron Copland’s Search for Music of the Americas

Even though Copland appreciated all types of European classical music, from the

baroque to the contemporary, he made it his objective to find a unique niche for American music

on the world stage, one that he viewed as being dominated by the European musical tradition.23

Copland’s America encompassed the regions of North, Central, and South America, or in short,

Swaminathan 7

the entire “New World”; therefore, his definition of the “American musical identity” was not

confined to the geographic region of the United States.24 After boldly proclaiming in 1926 that

“the day of the neglected American composer is over,” Copland, along with U.S. composer

Roger Sessions, started the “Copland-Sessions Concerts of Contemporary Music” in New York

in 1928 with the goal of promoting modern works by young American composers.25 Even though

contemporary European music was occasionally also part of the program, the focus of these

concerts was American music, so they were instrumental in creating camaraderie among

emerging American composers.26 Because Copland ventured to champion the music of America,

he incorporated four works by Carlos Chávez (1899-1978), an eminent Mexican conductor and

composer, into the opening day program of the Copland-Sessions concert series on April 22,

1928.27 Later, Copland revealed his mission of finding an identity for American music in his

1931 letter to Chávez, “I am through with Europe[,] Carlos, and I believe as you do, that our

salvation must come from ourselves and that we must fight the foreign element in America

which ignores American music.”28 As part of his unstoppable quest for providing America with a

unique “musical identity,” he encouraged the formation of individual partnerships and

organizational collaborations to facilitate musical sharing.29 Copland expressed his artistic goal

openly, even in his 1978 eulogy for Chávez: “He and I felt ourselves brothers-in-arms, desirous

of having the musico-artistic life of our two countries join the twentieth century....”30 In his

search for Pan-Americanism in music, Copland not only relied on his personal affiliations, but

also involved himself in a cultural exchange program with South America. Copland toured South

America in 1941 as a cultural envoy for Nelson Rockefeller’s Committee of Inter-American

Affairs and again in 1947 as a cultural diplomat on behalf of the United States State

Department.31 The Latin American melodies and rhythms that Copland undoubtedly listened to

Swaminathan 8

during his sojourns in South America influenced his compositional style and aided in reinforcing

his dream of a Pan-American musical community of the New World.

Copland’s Ties to Mexico: The Pan-American Connection

Copland and Chávez had a special musical friendship that lasted from their initial

meeting in 1927 until Chávez’s death in 1978.32 Since the two contemporaries wrote music that

challenged the traditionally accepted European monopoly over classical music composition, it is

natural to regard Copland’s numerous trips to Mexico and his symphonic work El Salón México

as a consequence of his friendship with Chávez and as demonstrative of his Pan-American

musical interests. After his first trip to Mexico, particularly to Mexico City and Tlalpam, which

lasted for four months, Copland wrote about his journey nostalgically to Mary Lescaze, a patron

of modern music.33 In this 1933 letter, Copland mentioned that the spirit of the Mexican people

evoked in him a sense of compassion and that he considered his travels in Mexico more

enlightening than any of his numerous visits to Europe.34 Touched by “their humanity, their

separate shyness, their dignity and unique charm,” Copland was determined to compose a piece

that would convey his “feelings about the entire country and its people.”35 He completed El

Salón México in 1936 as a tribute to the simplicity of the Mexican people.36 The piece was to be

premiered the next year in Mexico City by the Orquesta Sinfónica de México under the direction

of Chávez. When, in 1937, Copland walked in upon one of the rehearsals for the premiere

performance, the musicians of the Orquesta, “who were in the thick of a Beethoven Symphony,

suddenly stopped what they were doing, and began to applaud vigorously.”37 Moved by their

gesture, Copland felt that the “writing of El Salón México [was] worthwhile;” he believed that he

had made the Mexican people proud that their own folk melodies had found a world stage

through a foreign composer.38

Swaminathan 9

Copland and his Leftist Political Views

In spite of the social, political, and economic turbulence that characterized early twentieth

century America, Copland was not outspoken about his political views. Musicologist Elizabeth

B. Crist of the University of Texas at Austin has argued that “Copland was a communist with a

lowercase c referencing the movement rather than the Party.”39 According to Crist, Copland’s

political beliefs could nonetheless be categorized as “progressive,” and he found communism in

its purest form as a “social movement and political philosophy” rather attractive.40 Music

historian Vivian Perlis of Yale University similarly contends that Copland “was not by nature a

political person” but was a “fellow traveler,” one who supported left-wing ideals without

maintaining any concrete affiliation with the Communist Party.41

Beginning in 1927 and throughout the Great Depression years, Copland served as a

faculty member at the decidedly liberal New School of Social Research in New York, a

university that served many liberal-minded intellectuals, including scholars who fled Europe’s

oppressive fascist regimes, by offering them greater freedom of thought and expression.42 Along

with his fellow artists and educators at the New School, Copland believed that an artist’s work

should support the masses and that recognition must be found for any art created with the intent

of providing social commentary on the injustices of the day.43 In 1932, Copland further evinced

his leftist political viewpoints when he established the Young Composers Group, an organization

that exemplified Marxist ideologies.44 He also involved himself in the Composers Collective, a

group that accentuated the importance of “proletarian music” and promoted such music by

publishing “radical songs.”45 In his 1939 autobiographical essay, Composer from Brooklyn,

Copland revealed his vision of extending classical music to a wider “music-loving public” by

utilizing a kind of “imposed simplicity” in his works.46 Moved by the widespread unemployment

Swaminathan 10

and poverty that characterized the Great Depression, Copland believed that the understanding of

and appreciation for classical music should not be confined to the urban aristocracy but instead

be accessible to a broader audience.47

Copland’s Leftist Ideals Manifested in El Salón México

According to Susan Key, former Special Projects Director of the San Francisco

Symphony, it is impossible to assert that El Salón México is political. However, while Copland’s

involvement with organizations like the Young Composers Group and his objective of

strengthening the American presence in the realm of classical music were the primary

motivations for the writing of El Salón México, Key remarks that they do not detract from the

piece’s political undertones.48 In 1934, Copland gave a speech in Bemidji, Minnesota, alongside

S. K. Davis, a communist who at the time was running for governor, to help promote

camaraderie among communist farmers. Reflecting on this experience, Copland wrote, “It’s one

thing to think revolution, or talk about it to one’s friends, but to preach it in the streets — OUT

LOUD — I’ll probably never be the same.”49 Interestingly, Copland finished writing El Salón

México, which he began composing in 1932, at Bemidji in 1934, the place where he first

publicized his leftist viewpoints, indicating that his communist political perspectives may have

had a role in the completion of the composition.50 El Salón México was not the only piece

Copland wrote that bears identifiable political influences. In the same year that he completed El

Salón México, Copland wrote music for the poem Into the Streets May First, which he called

“my communist song.”51 Pondering the importance of music as regards his inner thoughts

(perhaps even his political inclinations), Copland once commented that “arts offer the

opportunity to do something that cannot be done anywhere else. It is the only place one can

express in public the feelings ordinarily regarded as private.”52

Swaminathan 11

Many similarities can be found between Copland’s political stance and the sociopolitical

climate of Mexico, a country that began to embrace leftist ideals in the early 1930s.53 As a leftist

himself, Copland believed in the equality of opportunity for all people, and he strove to

demonstrate to the rest of the world the true cultural potential of the Mexican people through his

El Salón México. According to Musicologist Howard Pollack of the University of Houston,

“Copland had certain social ideals, and … he probably had not only the Mexican people but

something of the Mexican socialist society in mind when he wrote El Salón México.”54 As

further evidence for Pollack’s reasoning, El Salón México, which Copland finished orchestrating

in 1936, was premiered on August 27, 1937 in Mexico City by the Orquesta Sinfónica de México

under the direction of Chávez, rather than in the United States by a U.S. orchestra.55 Moreover,

the Orquesta Sinfónica de México premiered Copland’s Symphony No. 1 in 1930 and gave the

world premiere of his Short Symphony in 1934.56 That Copland placed such confidence in a

Mexican orchestra by having the Orquesta Sinfónica de México premiere so many of his works

demonstrates his belief in a Populist philosophy, one that compelled him to facilitate the

recognition of Mexican musicians by giving them a place on the world’s musical stage.

Because one of Copland’s intentions in composing works like El Salón México was to

cultivate in his fellow citizens the sense of respect and compassion he himself had for the

Mexican people, his sojourns in Mexico cannot be singly attributed to his friendship with

Chávez. As Pollack argues, Chávez had attempted “for some time to persuade Copland to visit

Mexico,” but he succeeded in convincing Copland to do so only in 1932.57 As a result, Copland’s

first visits to Mexico were concurrent with the Great Depression and Mexican Repatriation.

These initial trips to Mexico were not merely coincidental with the troubling sociopolitical issues

of the 1930s, however. During a Works-Progress-Administration-funded concert in 1937, when

Swaminathan 12

Copland was asked if the troubling social and economic circumstances associated with the Great

Depression affected his music, he forthrightly responded, “Yes! It affected it very much.”58

During the three visits that Copland made to Mexico in the 1930s, he acquired a

thorough, first-hand understanding of Mexican culture by interacting with the Mexican people,

thereby exemplifying on a personal level the Populist ideals that he communicated to his

audience in El Salón México. Copland spent a few months in the boroughs of Mexico City,

particularly Tlalpam, Tlaxcala, and Tepoztlán, where he adapted himself to Mexican cuisine by

hiring a Yucatán cook, worked on his Spanish, and listened to Mariachi bands in addition to

attending programmed concerts of his own music.59 In Tepoztlán, he also attended biweekly

dances that were held in the market square, thus mingling directly with the Mexican people.60

Significantly, the subject matter for El Salón México originated from Copland’s association with

the Mexican people and his understanding of their culture. Copland himself admitted that the

“piece might never have been written if it hadn’t been for the existence of the Salón México,” a

nightclub and dance hall frequented by people of multifarious social backgrounds.61 He learned

about this dance hall through the Mexican guidebook of Anita Brenner, an expert on Mexican

arts and history who aimed at educating her U.S. readers about Mexico. The Salón México thus

serves as a concrete link between Copland’s El Salón México and his Populist social ideals.62

Copland’s immense appreciation for the Mexican people and their culture is best

delineated, however, in the letters he wrote to his friends and acquaintances about his

experiences in Mexico. When he visited Mexico for the first time in 1932, Copland sentimentally

asserted in a letter to Virgil Thomson, another American composer, that “[t]he best [of Mexico]

is the people — there’s nothing remotely like them in Europe. They are really the ‘people’ —

nothing in them is striving to be bourgeois. In their overalls and bare feet they are not only poetic

Swaminathan 13

but positively ‘émouvant’ [moving].”63 Upon leaving Mexico after this first trip, Copland

confessed in a letter to his friend Chávez, “As soon as we crossed the border I regretted leaving

Mexico with a sharp pang.”64 After arriving in the United States that same year, he declared in a

letter to his friend Mary Lescaze that he left Mexico “with the impression of having had an

enriching experience. It comes, no doubt, from the nature of the country and the people.”65 The

admiring and even nostalgic tones that are readily identifiable in Copland’s letters to Thomson,

Chávez, and Lescaze indicate that Copland truly embraced his Populist beliefs by interacting

Mexican people and learning to appreciate their culture. Given that Copland started composing

El Salón México in 1932, the same year that he paid his first visit to Mexico, it is indeed not

surprising that Copland himself describes the piece as a “composition celebrating Mexico.”66

The music of Chávez and his colleague Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940), another notable

Mexican composer and conductor who, like both Copland and Chávez, embraced leftist political

philosophies, also had significant influences on Copland. Chávez asserted that “the composer

should be integrated into the musical life of the present,” and he wrote music that reflected

Mexico’s noticeably socialist political leanings.67 As a composer, Chávez infused his

compositions with the essence of Mexican and Indian folk music, thereby forging a concrete link

between his music and his audience.68 Copland admired Chávez’s ability to create so powerful “a

connection between composer and audience” and thus may have been motivated to compose his

El Salón México as a collage of folk melodies that, in accordance with his Populist philosophy,

were accessible to the common people.69 Revueltas’ music was “based more directly on actual

tunes that originated from popular Mexican music” and was “derived from the more usual

everyday side of Mexican life.”70 Moreover, Revueltas, whose political perspective aligned with

that of Copland, was a member of the League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists, an

Swaminathan 14

organization that had Communist affiliations.71 Although Copland viewed Revueltas’ music,

particularly his piece Ventanas, as “chock full of orchestral color,” he indubitably utilized

elements of Revueltas’ compositional style in El Salón México, which itself is a medley of

distinct folk melodies, tunes, and rhythmic patterns.72

In El Salón México, Copland employed Mexican melodies that were already known to his

fellow U.S. citizens. He borrowed some tunes from Cancionero Mexicano, the 1931 collection

compiled by Frances Toor, a leading American folklorist and “ambassador to the rest of the

world for Mexican crafts, arts and culture.” For the other melodies, Copland looked to the El

Folk-lore y la Musica Mexicana, the work of the famous Mexican musical scholar Ruben M.

Campos.73 Particularly, Copland obtained the songs El Palo Verde and La Jesusita from Toor’s

book, while El Mosco and El Malacate are from Campos’ anthology.74 By utilizing the resources

provided in the works of Toor and Campos (in addition to having discovered the Salón México

through Brenner’s guidebook), Copland may have been able to make El Salón México and its

inherently Populist message more relatable for his U.S. listeners. Additionally, by incorporating

the tunes he found in the books of Toor and Campos, Copland brings a great degree of

authenticity to the piece; indeed, reviewers commented that El Salón México was “as Mexican as

the music of Revueltas.”75

El Salón México, a symphonic work made up of folk melodies that are accessible to the

common man, is Copland’s first composition that possesses all the characteristics of the

“imposed simplicity” he envisioned for his music.76 As musicologists like Crist contend,

Copland’s works from 1932 to 1946 were significantly influenced by the “cultural and political

context of the Great Depression and World War II” and therefore epitomize the notions of

“aesthetic accessibility and social relevance.”77 El Salón México certainly embodies the

Swaminathan 15

philosophy of Populism, for it was created with the ideals of progressive social reform, cultural

diversity, sympathy toward working class people, and “pan-ethnic Americanism” in mind.78 As a

left-leaning liberal at heart, Copland believed in the prospect of positively impacting society

through art, and in composing such works as El Salón México, he “retained his faith in the power

of the arts to create new opportunities for peace and understanding.”79

Puerto Rican Migration in 1950s United States

As part of the 1898 Treaty of Paris that concluded the Spanish-American War, the

territory of Puerto Rico was ceded by the Spanish to the victorious Americans.80 What actually

transformed Puerto Rican history, however, was not its acquisition by the United States but

rather its key role as a source of U.S. soldiers in World War I. Just a month before the United

States entered the war in April 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act

into law, thereby granting U.S. citizenship to all Puerto Ricans.81 In May of the same year, about

18,000 Puerto Ricans, who had just become U.S. citizens, were legally conscripted into the U.S.

military through the 1917 Selective Service Act.82

The granting of U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans nevertheless did not directly result in a

large increase in migration from the island territory to the mainland. When, however, the U.S.

government initiated an ambitious post-World-War-II economic project known as “Operation

Bootstrap” in 1947, the increase in the island’s industrial jobs that resulted was outweighed by

the decline in agricultural employment opportunities, causing greater unemployment in Puerto

Rico’s growing population.83 The combination of heightened unemployment on the island,

greater perceived job opportunities in alluring mainland U.S. cities like New York, and increased

affordability of airfares led to a sudden, exponential rise in the migration rate of Puerto Ricans to

Swaminathan 16

the U.S. mainland.84 From 1950 to 1959, a total of about 470,000 Puerto Ricans migrated to the

U.S. mainland, an increase of nearly 250-fold from the beginning of the century.85

Unlike the Mexican immigrants who, in the early 1900s, came to work in the United

States’ emergent western mining, railroad, and agricultural industries, the Puerto Ricans who

arrived after 1917 were all legal citizens.86 Despite their status as U.S. citizens, many Puerto

Rican immigrants to the mainland were nonetheless subjected to racial discrimination and

mistreatment, not unlike that experienced by their Mexican counterparts more than two decades

earlier. Puerto Rican families “faced a highly racialized labor market,” one in which

discrimination, mistreatment, and racial segregation forced them into menial jobs and

impoverished neighborhoods.87 In the 1950s, most Puerto Ricans who migrated to New York

found homes in the then-tenement neighborhoods of East Harlem, Lower East Side, and San

Juan Hill (the current location of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts).88

As a consequence of New York’s changing ethnic composition, many rivalries arose

between teenagers from different ethnic backgrounds; in 1955, New York was plagued by nearly

100 teenage gangs, and fights between these gangs riddled districts as far as Orchard Beach on

the eastern seaboard and Washington Heights in western Manhattan.89 Such violent gang-related

attacks in New York only worsened as a result of the greater knowledge of warfare and access to

sophisticated weaponry that spread among civilians in the aftermath of World War II.90 For

instance, in the 1950s, one particularly notorious gang war was fought between the “Mayrose (a

street gang made up of white youths of varied ethnicity), Dragons (a Puerto Rican gang), and

Sportsmen (African American adolescents living in housing projects).”91 Consequently, the

newspaper reports of those days reverberated with the gruesome details of gang wars, which

almost always resulted in the deaths of many gang members.92 In one New York Times article

Swaminathan 17

from May 10, 1950, a teenage boy was reported as having been arrested thrice for the abuse of

guns and once for stabbing another person.93 Just like the Mexican Repatriation of the 1930s cost

Mexican Americans their jobs, property, and rights to live and work in the United States, similar

racial discrimination in the 1950s prevented Puerto Ricans from seeking suitable jobs and living

in neighborhoods that provided sufficient opportunities for education and personal security.

Copland’s Influence on Bernstein

Copland and Bernstein first met at the former’s studio in 1937, where Bernstein

unexpectedly performed Copland’s esoteric Piano Variations, a piece considered to be the

“anthem of the young American modernists,” completely from memory.94 While still a

sophomore at Harvard College, Bernstein was already becoming a part of “the new American

music” that was sweeping across the country under the well-recognized leadership of Copland.95

The collaborative musical friendship that developed between Copland and Bernstein certainly

“had a powerful impact on musical culture in the United States for almost half a century.”96

Bernstein was influenced by Copland’s compositional style, and he firmly believed that Copland

“was the composer who would lead American music out of the wilderness.”97

Copland also served as a kind of composition teacher for Bernstein, who learned the

Hispanic musical style “not from Ravel or Rimsky-Korsakov, but from Copland.”98 Bernstein

was so deeply influenced by Copland’s El Salón México that he not only arranged the piece for

both solo piano and piano duo, but also performed the piano duo arrangement with Copland for

various events.99 In his 1938 letter to Copland, Bernstein revealed his feelings about El Salón

México as well as the extent to which the piece had influenced him. Arguing in the letter that El

Salón México was not a “light” work, as some critics believed, Bernstein asserted, “Light piece,

indeed. I tremble when I think of producing something like the Salón.”100 Utilizing the very

Swaminathan 18

methods Copland employed two decades earlier to bring attention to Mexico and its people

through El Salón México, Bernstein compelled his audiences to consider the plight of the newly

arrived Puerto Ricans in his own musical West Side Story. As musicologist Elizabeth A. Wells of

Mount Allison University contends, El Salón México undoubtedly played a key role in inspiring

Bernstein to compose West Side Story: “It was Copland’s imprimatur that made the Latin

American, the Hispanic, part of an American voice, and that allowed it to meld so comfortably

with the many other influences that infuse West Side Story. Copland’s fingerprints are all over

this piece, not least in those tinged with the Hispanic.”101

Bernstein’s Political Leanings

Having been raised in the politically and culturally volatile atmosphere of the 1930s,

Bernstein, like his mentor Copland, was as much a left-leaning liberal as he was an artist. As

artists and activists, both Copland and Bernstein believed that art should shed light on the

sociopolitical issues of the times and thereby increase social awareness in the hope of finding

plausible solutions to such problems.102 Nevertheless, while Copland generally kept his political

viewpoints to himself, Bernstein practiced openly “radical activism” and was a “fervent warrior”

who fought against injustice and publicly adhered to his Populist social principles.103

In 1937, when American composer Marc Blitzstein’s opera The Cradle Will Rock was

banned in New York and Massachusetts by the New Deal’s Federal Theater Project for its

radical pro-union plotline delineating the labor feuds that often pitted “heroic workers against

thuggish bosses,” Bernstein, who was a senior at Harvard, promptly put on his own production of

the opera in Sanders Theater on the Harvard Campus, where the ban could not be enforced.104 A

critic for the Boston Post declared that Bernstein’s production “featured the most talented student

cast” that he had ever witnessed.105 Bernstein, who knew the piano/vocal score of the opera by

Swaminathan 19

heart, not only performed the piano accompaniment, but also acted in two small roles and

announced the titles for each scene.106 Later that year, in his 1939 senior thesis, “The Absorption

of Race Elements into American Music,” Bernstein summarized the Populist ideals explored by

numerous left-leaning artists, including Copland, and called for an American musical style that

would foster nationalism by bringing all Americans together, regardless of their racial, ethnic,

religious, or economic backgrounds.107

Another example that illustrates Bernstein’s commitment to sociopolitical change is the

article entitled “The Negro in Music” that he wrote for The New York Times in 1947.108 In this

article, Bernstein argued that racial discrimination prevented African Americans from receiving

the necessary training and support for admittance to music-related organizations throughout the

United States.109 Furthermore, he asserted that discrimination in the music world was a “social,

not a musical problem” and that “everything we [Americans] can do to fight discrimination — in

any form or field — will ultimately work toward ameliorating the musical situation.”110 As a

result of Bernstein’s controversial newspaper publication, racial discrimination in the U.S. music

industry became a major subject for debate.

Just after Bernstein graduated from Harvard in 1939, Dmitri Mitropoulos, the artistic

director of the New York Philharmonic whom Bernstein met at a Harvard Greek Society

gathering, declared the young graduate a promising conductor, and Copland described Bernstein

as being a “rising presence in American musical life.”111 In spite of these accolades from the

musical world, Bernstein faced scrutiny from both local and federal authorities on account of his

political leanings. For instance, the Cambridge police department almost investigated him for

being a “Red” soon after his production of The Cradle Will Rock. 112 Subsequently, when an

unknown informant warned the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Bernstein was a communist

Swaminathan 20

leader, the FBI established a dossier tracking Bernstein’s words and actions that eventually

became almost seven hundred pages long.113 Bernstein’s spokesperson Margaret Carson once

commented that Bernstein claimed to be a “socialist,” but was not affiliated with the Communist

Party.114 She further added that “[h]is political involvement was for all humanity. He loved the

world and wanted the best for it.”115 In 1994, a former State Department Cultural Exchange

Officer wrote to The New York Times that whenever the question of political association arose,

Bernstein remarked, “Why can’t we all live happily together?”116

Bernstein’s Political Ideals Manifested in West Side Story

West Side Story, a musical loosely based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, opened on

September 26, 1957, at Broadway, almost twenty years after the premiere of El Salón México in

Mexico City.117 According to Musicologist Carol J. Oja of Harvard University, West Side Story

“dug its heels into the gritty pavement of the here-and-now, confronting gang violence and racial

prejudice against Puerto Rican immigrants as they negotiated the urban jungle.”118 Just as El

Salón México was premiered during the Great Depression, when Mexican Americans were

forcefully exiled to Mexico, West Side Story was released at a time when ethnic gang violence

was at its peak in American cities like New York. While Copland only declared that he was

moved by the Mexican people and never publicly described his composition as an outcry against

the racism and nativism that fueled the Mexican Repatriation, Bernstein openly acknowledged

that his musical was “one long protest against racial discrimination.”119 Indeed, in his personal

copy of Romeo and Juliet, Bernstein declared in one of his annotations that the musical he had

envisioned would be “an out and out plea for racial tolerance.”120

Copland composed El Salón México during the Mexican Repatriation, a time when

Mexican Americans suffered widespread racial discrimination. Although the original script of

Swaminathan 21

West Side Story was based on the feud between Catholics and Jews that plagued the Lower East

Side in New York, Bernstein wanted to portray a theme more pertinent to his times and therefore

decided to instead depict the “Anglo-Puerto Rican friction” that was on the rise in the Upper

West Side barrios, or neighborhoods, where approximately 600,000 Puerto Ricans lived.121 Yet,

the social relevance of El Salón México and West Side Story is not limited to the sociopolitical

issues that inspired their composition. Specifically, the performers that Copland and Bernstein

selected for the premieres of these two works were instrumental in communicating their Populist

social message. Copland brought attention to his progressive ideals by having the relatively

unknown Orquesta Sinfónica de México premiere El Salón México. Similarly, Bernstein, along

with director-choreographer Jerome Robbins, revived the Populist goals that Copland upheld in

their production of West Side Story by hiring playwright Arthur Laurents, who was proscribed

for his 1945 anti-racist play Home of the Brave.122 Furthermore, they chose unknown actors for

key roles, like Larry Kert for Tony, Carol Lawrence for Maria, and Chita Rivera for Anita, and

recruited the unknown lyricist Stephen Sondheim.123 Bernstein evinced his Populist philosophy,

which he learned about through his interactions with “his close friend and mentor Aaron

Copland,” by calling for actors from high schools, college choirs, settlement houses, and night

clubs to play the musical’s thirty-eight parts.124

Copland visited Mexico several times in the 1930s as he was composing El Salón

México, and he brought a great degree of realism to his piece by incorporating original Mexican

folk melodies. In 1955, Bernstein visited his brother Burton Bernstein, who was posted in San

Juan, Puerto Rico, with the objective of hearing authentic Puerto Rican music at “some of the

cruddy boites,” or nightclubs.125 While in San Juan, he was particularly entertained by a quintet

that played music for the mambo, or a dynamic Latin dance form.126 The “Mambo” in West Side

Swaminathan 22

Story was indeed an adaptation of the native music that Bernstein had listened to while staying in

San Juan.127 Furthermore, Bernstein replaced the originally planned aggressive, fast music for

the opening chorus with about five minutes of mere finger-snapping and the sound of a

whistle.128 Finally, in El Salón México, Copland used Mexican lyrics that Toor had already made

popular in America. As he wrote the lyrics for West Side Story, Sondheim was aware of

Bernstein’s goal “to bring the language down to the level of real simplicity.”129 For example, in

the song “America,” the chorus sings these rather unsophisticated but still meaningful words:

“Nobody knows in America / Puerto Rico’s in America.”130 Certainly, these decisions on

Bernstein’s part reveals Copland’s compositional influence; the commonplace sounds of a

finger-snapping and a whistle as well as the plainness of the lyrics hark back to Copland’s notion

of “imposed simplicity” and the objective of reaching out to a wider audience.131

Copland honored the simple lifestyle practiced by the Mexican people and made his

fellow U.S. citizens more aware of Mexico’s cultural potential through his El Salón México.

Correspondingly, New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson commented that West Side Story

brought the attention of its audience to the pathos and hopelessness of the teenage gangs, as the

musical ends with the death of Tony, the lead male character.132 In response to her boyfriend

Tony’s death, Maria, the lead female character, desperately cries, “How many bullets are

left?”133 Through Maria’s words, the creators of West Side Story warn not only that the United

States has not yet seen the worst of the gang wars, but also that such wars, if left unresolved,

could be detrimental to U.S. urban society. According to Oja, the 1950s societal problems that

Bernstein boldly raised through West Side Story can be summarized in the following three

questions: “Who should take responsibility for the fate of these desperate urban kids? Why do

humans resort to blood-shed, which consistently hurts more than helps? How do immigrants fit

Swaminathan 23

into a new home when ethnic difference starkly sets them apart?”134 Bernstein’s commentary on

the gang violence of the time was so poignant that the United States State Department became

concerned about the musical’s portentous “social message” and chose not to allow the showing

of West Side Story in the U.S.-Soviet cultural exchange program. In response to the State

Department’s decision, Bernstein remarked, “The greatest thing we have to sell is our freedom of

expression,” thus evidencing his goal of communicating Populist social ideals through music.135

As pioneers in the world of American classical music, both Copland and Bernstein raised

America’s music from relative obscurity to artistic competency on the level of the contemporary

advances in European classical music and thus established a precedent for the nation’s future

musicians. Recognizing that “American” music was bound to become a fusion of the music of its

immigrants, they not only brought attention to the emerging music of the New World through

their compositions, but also addressed the issue of immigrants who faced discrimination on

account of their distinct ethnicities and cultures. Both Copland and Bernstein made their

audiences aware of the extent to which immigrants have enriched American society and culture

by contributing significantly in the fields of art, music, culture, language, agriculture, science,

and technology; being the children of Jewish Russian immigrants themselves, Copland and

Bernstein are excellent examples of the artistic potential and talent that immigrants brought to

the United States. Although it has been nearly eighty years since El Salón México was composed

and over fifty years since West Side Story opened on Broadway, these pieces nevertheless

continue to celebrate Hispanic culture, invite an open-minded societal perspective, elevate the

music of the Americas, and promote racial tolerance in a society as culturally diverse as that of

the United States.

Swaminathan 24

Notes

1. Copland Aaron. “The Story behind My El Salón México.” Tempo 4 (July 1939): 2-4.

http://www.jstor.org/ stable/943608; Oja, Carol J. “West Side Story and The Music Man: whiteness, immigration, and race in the US during the late 1950s.” Studies in Musical Theatre 3, no. 1 (2009): 13-30. doi:10.1386/smt.3.1.13/1.

2. Frame, Craig S. “Mexican Repatriation: A Generation between Two Borders.” California State University San Marcos, Department of History. Last modified 2009. http://public.csusm.edu/frame004/history.html.

3. Department of Latin American and Puerto Rican Studies, Lehman College, City University of New York. “Puerto Rican Emigration: Why the 1950s?” Puerto Rican Migration. http://lcw.lehman.edu/lehman/depts/ latinampuertorican/latinoweb/.

4. Oja, “West Side Story and The Music Man: whiteness, immigration, and race in the US during the late 1950s.”

5. Rosenberg, Jonathan. “An Idealist Abroad.” In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 117-133. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.

6. Pollack, Howard. Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man, 4. Chicago, Il: University of Illinois Press, 1999.

7. Bernstein, Burton. “A Brother’s Recollection: Paying the Price.” In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 54-57. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.

8. Wells, Elizabeth A. “West Side Story and the Hispanic.” ECHO: a music centered journal 2, no. 1 (Spring 2000). http://www.echo.ucla.edu/Volume2-Issue1/wells/wells.pdf; Burton, Humphrey. “West Side Story.” In Leonard Bernstein, 49. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

9. University of California, Los Angeles. “Mexican Immigration to the United States 1900-1999.” National Center for History in the Schools. http://www.learner.org/courses/.../pdf/Mexican_Immigration_L-One.pdf.

10. Frame, “Mexican Repatriation: A Generation between Two Borders.”

11. University of California, Davis. “Farm Labor in the 1930s.” Rural Migration News. Last modified October 2003. http://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=788_0_6_0.

12. Ibid.


Swaminathan 25

14. University of California, Davis. “Farm Labor in the 1930s.”

15. Ibid.

16. The Oryx Press. Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics: Hispanic Americans and Native Americans. Edited by Jeffrey D Schultz, Kerry L Haynie, Anne M McCulloch, and Andrew L Aoki. Vol. 2 of Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics. Phoenix, AZ: The Oryx Press, 2000.


18. Ibid.

19. Koch, Wendy. “U.S. urged to apologize for 1930s deportations.” USA Today, April 5, 2006. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-04-1930s-deportees-cover_x.htm.

20. Ibid.


22. McKay, Robert R. “Mexican Americans and Repatriation.” The Handbook of Texas Online. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/pqmyk.

23. Pollack, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man, 75.

24. Collette, Christopher W. ““Our salvation must come from ourselves”: Aaron Copland, Carlos Chávez, and American Musical Identity, 1928-1937.” Institute on Performing Arts Librarianship, Pratt Institute. Last modified 2007. http://collettico.com/documents/aaroncoplandstudyexcerpt.pdf.

25. Oja, Carol, J. “Celebrating the Copland-Sessions Concerts.” American Composers Orchestra. http://www.americancomposers.org/copland_sessions_oja.htm.

26. Ibid.

27. Parker, Robert L. “Copland and Chávez: Brothers-in-Arms.” American Music 5, no. 4 (Winter 1987): 433-444. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3051451.

28. Copland, Aaron. “Letter from Aaron Copland to Carlos Chávez, 1931/12/26.” The Library of Congress — American Memory — The Aaron Copland Collection ca. 1900-1990. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/copland:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28coplandcorr0162%29%29::.

29. Crist, Elizabeth Bergman. Music for the Common Man: Aaron Copland during the Depression and War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, 44.

Swaminathan 26

30. Parker, “Copland and Chávez: Brothers-in-Arms.”

31. Pollack, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man, 228, 230.

32. Ibid., 216; Parker, “Copland and Chávez: Brothers-in-Arms.”


34. Copland, “Letter from Aaron Copland to Mary Lescaze, 1933/01/13.” The Library of Congress — American Memory — The Aaron Copland Collection ca. 1900-1990. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/copland:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28coplandcorr0707%29%29::.


36. Ibid., 298, 299.

37. Copland, “The Story behind My El Salón México.”

38. Ibid.

39. Crist, Music for the Common Man: Aaron Copland during the Depression and War, 19.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid., 15.


43. Ibid.


45. Ibid.

46. Ibid., 5.

47. Ibid.

48. Key, Susan. Telephone interview by author, December 11, 2012.

Swaminathan 27

49. Morelock, Bill. “Conscience vs. McCarthy: the political Aaron Copland.” Minnesota

Public Radio. Last modified May 3, 2005. http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/05/03_morelockb_unamerican/.


51. Morelock, “Conscience vs. McCarthy: the political Aaron Copland.”


53. Bulliet, Richard W, Pamela Kyle Crossley, Daniel R Headrick, Steven W Hirsch, Lyman L Johnson, and David Northrup. “The Mexican Revolution 1910-1940.” In The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History 3rd ed., 807-810. Boston: Hougton Mifflin Company, 2005.

54. Pollack, Howard. “Questions on my research about Copland’s El Salon Mexico.” E-mail message to Ashvin Swaminathan, December 15, 2012.

55. Copland, “The Story behind My El Salón México”; Crist, Music for the Common Man: Aaron Copland during the Depression and War, 215.

56. Parker, “Copland and Chávez: Brothers-in-Arms.”



59. Pollack, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man, 224-225.

60. Ibid., 226.

61. Ibid.


63. Crist, Music for the Common Man: Aaron Copland during the Depression and War, 50-51.


65. Ibid.


Swaminathan 28

67. Ibid., 47.

68. Ibid., 47.

69. Ibid., 47.


71. Pollack, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man, 219-220.


73. Ibid., 53; Copland, “The Story behind My El Salón México”; Anon. “Frances Toor, 66, Wrote on Mexico.” New York Times (New York), June 18, 1956.




77. Ibid.

78. Ibid., 59.

79. Ansari, Emily Abrams. “Aaron Copland and the Politics of Cultural Diplomacy.” Journal of the Society for American Music 5, no. 3 (2011): 335-364. doi:10.1017/S1752196311000162.

80. Library of Congress. “Treaty of Paris of 1898.” The World of 1898: The Spanish American War. Last modified June 22, 2011. http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/treaty.html.

81. Library of Congress. “Jones Act.” The World of 1898: The Spanish-American War. Last modified June 22, 2011. http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/jonesact.html.

82. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. “World War I Selective Service System.” Military Records. http://www.archives.gov/research/military/ww1/draft-registration/; Roman, Shirley E. “The Future Status of Puerto Rico: Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy.” Master's thesis, United States Navy: Naval Post Graduate School, 1991. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a246205.pdf.

Swaminathan 29

83. Department of Latin American and Puerto Rican Studies, Lehman College, City

University of New York. “Puerto Rican Emigration: Why the 1950s?”

84. Ibid.

85. Ibid.

86. Ibid.; Library of Congress. “Migrating to a New Land.” Immigration Puerto Rican. http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/cuban3.html.

87. Justice Policy Institute. “Gangs in New York City.” Justice Policy on Gang Violence. http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/07-07_Ch1_GangWars_GC-PS-AC-JJ.pdf.

88. Wise, Brian. “The Gangs of New York.” The New York Sun, September 17, 2007. http://www.nysun.com/arts/gangs-of-newyork/62756/.

89. Wise, “The Gangs of New York.”

90. Justice Policy Institute. “Gangs in New York City.”

91. Ibid.

92. Oja, “West Side Story and The Music Man: whiteness, immigration, and race in the US during the late 1950s.”

93. Grutzner, Charles. “Bronx is Deadliest of Teen War Areas.” New York Times (New York), May

10, 1950. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

94. Seldes, Barry. Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2009, 14.

95. Ibid., 15.

96. The Leonard Bernstein Office. “Leonard Bernstein: The Conductor, The Educator, The Composer, The Person.” Leonard Bernstein. http://www.leonardbernstein.com.

97. Bernstein, Leonard. “The Aaron Copland Collection ca. 1900-1990: An Intimate Sketch.” Library of Congress, American Memory. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/copland/acintim.html.

98. Wells, “West Side Story and the Hispanic.”

Swaminathan 30

99. Ibid.

100. Ibid.

101. Ibid.

102. Boyer, Paul. “Leonard Bernstein: Humanitarian and Social Activist.” In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 35-45. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.

103. Ibid., 39; Bernstein, “A Brother’s Recollection: Paying the Price,” In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 54-57.

104. Boyer, “Leonard Bernstein: Humanitarian and Social Activist,” In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 36.

105. Burton, Humphrey. “Broader Horizons.” In Leonard Bernstein, 40-55.

106. Ibid.

107. Boyer, “Leonard Bernstein: Humanitarian and Social Activist,” In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 36-37; Burton, “Broader Horizons.” In Leonard Bernstein, 40-55.


109. Ibid.

110. Ibid.

111. Seldes, Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician, 24.

112. Ibid.

113. Ibid.; Boyer, “Leonard Bernstein: Humanitarian and Social Activist,” In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 39.

114. Ibid., 42.

115. Ibid.

116. Ibid.

Swaminathan 31

117. Oja, “West Side Story and The Music Man: whiteness, immigration, and race in the

US during the late 1950s.”

118. Ibid.


120. Library of Congress. “The Origins of West Side Story.” Leonard Bernstein Collection. http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/hopeforamerica/causesandcontroversies/songanddance/ExhibitObjects/WestSideStoryOrigins.aspx?Enlarge=true&ImageId=298f223f-da7f-47e9-8ff0-f6016b6ee4d5%3a92f4d7f0-4127-4475-b71e-583e1751c237%3a56&PersistentId=1%3a298f223f-da7f-47e9-8ff0-f6016b6ee4d5%3a9&ReturnUrl=%2fExhibitions%2fhopeforamerica%2fcausesandcontroversies%2fsonganddance%2fExhibitObjects%2fWestSideStoryOrigins.aspx.

121. Bernstein, “A Brother’s Recollection: Easy Laughter of a Grand Wit.” In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 79; Boyer, “Leonard Bernstein: Humanitarian and Social Activist,” In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 44.

122. Ibid.

123. Oja, “West Side Story and The Music Man: whiteness, immigration, and race in the US during the late 1950s”; Oja, Carol J. “Bernstein’s Musicals: Reflections of Their Time.” In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 74; Burton, Humphrey. “Broader Horizons.” In Leonard Bernstein, 370.

124. Boyer, “Leonard Bernstein: Humanitarian and Social Activist,” In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 39; Oja, “West Side Story and The Music Man: whiteness, immigration, and race in the US during the late 1950s.”

125. Bernstein, “A Brother’s Recollection: Easy Laughter of a Grand Wit,” In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 79.

126. Ibid.

127. Ibid.

128. Burton, “Broader Horizons,” In Leonard Bernstein, 269.

129. Ibid., 274.

Swaminathan 32

130. Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company / Boosey & Hawkes. “America.”

West Side Story: Stage Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. http://www.westsidestory.com/site/level2/lyrics/america.html.



133. Ibid.

134. Oja, “Bernstein’s Musicals: Reflections of Their Time”, In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 74.


Swaminathan 33

Bibliography

Anon. “Frances Toor, 66, Wrote on Mexico.” New York Times (New York), June 18, 1956. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

This newspaper article is an obituary published two days after Frances Toor’s death in New York. The article celebrates Toor’s contributions as a Mexican folklorist and proclaims her a prominent expert on Mexican arts and culture. Ansari, Emily Abrams. “Aaron Copland and the Politics of Cultural Diplomacy.” Journal of the

Society for American Music 5, no. 3 (2011): 335-364. doi:10.1017/S1752196311000162.

This journal article is an excellent source that investigates Copland’s political attitude and its effect on his music. It discusses his international travels as the cultural ambassador for the U.S. government and his belief that he could use music to bring about world peace. Furthermore, it covers how different political events influenced his particular compositions. Ansari is a Music Historian at Western University in Ontario, Canada.

Bernstein, Burton. “A Brother’s Recollection: Easy Laughter of a Grand Wit.” In Leonard

Bernstein: American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 76-79. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.

This anthology has many essays that offer an excellent and detailed portrait of Leonard

Bernstein as a teacher of music, composer, conductor, political and social activist, and humanitarian. Furthermore, it has a gallery of Bernstein’s photographs from throughout his life, newspaper clippings, and copies of musical scores with Bernstein’s markings. Burton Bernstein is Leonard Bernstein’s younger brother. He is an author of various books and also was a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine from 1957 to 1992. Barbara Haws is a music historian of the New York Philharmonic. In this book, Bernstein and Haws have compiled essays about Leonard Bernstein written by several experts. Furthermore, the essays are interspersed by personal recollections by Burton Bernstein. In this personal recollection, Burton Bernstein focuses on his brother’s musical life and how his visit to San Juan, Puerto Rico affected the composition of West Side Story. Bernstein, Leonard. “The Aaron Copland Collection ca. 1900-1990: An Intimate Sketch.”

Library of Congress, American Memory. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/copland/acintim.html.

The Library of Congress maintains an extensive collection of Copland’s letters, essays,

photographs, and compositions. This particular page is Leonard Bernstein’s article from a journal in which he chronicles his years of acquaintance with Copland and how Copland influenced his musical life.

Swaminathan 34

Blumenthal, Ralph. “Files Detail Years of Spying on Bernstein.” The New York Times:

Archives. Last modified July 29, 1994. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/29/us/files-detail-years-of-spying-on-bernstein.html.

This New York Times article focuses on how the FBI spied on Leonard Bernstein for

over thirty years and documented his political activities. It also discusses how the FBI’s spying was completely unwarranted.

Boriskin, Michael. “Aaron Copland: Timeline of a Musical Life.” Copland House.

http://www.coplandhouse.org/aaron-copland/timeline/.

This website maintained by the Copland House organization has a detailed timeline of Copland from 1900 to 1990 marking every major event in his life. It also has some beautiful photographs of Copland at work.

Boyer, Paul. “Leonard Bernstein: Humanitarian and Social Activist.” In Leonard Bernstein:

American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 35-45. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.


Bernstein as a teacher of music, composer, conductor, political and social activist, and humanitarian. Furthermore, it has a gallery of Bernstein’s photographs from throughout his life, newspaper clippings, and copies of musical scores with Bernstein’s markings. Burton Bernstein is Leonard Bernstein’s younger brother. He is an author of various books and also was a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine from 1957 to 1992. Barbara Haws is a music historian of the New York Philharmonic. In this book, Bernstein and Haws have compiled essays about Leonard Bernstein written by several experts. Furthermore, the essays are interspersed by personal recollections by Burton Bernstein. Paul Boyer discusses Leonard Bernstein’s life as a social and political activist as well as Bernstein’s message behind West Side Story.

Bulliet, Richard W., Pamela Kyle Crossley, Daniel R. Headrick, Steven W. Hirsch, Lyman L.

Johnson, and David Northrup. “The Mexican Revolution 1910-1940.” In The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History 3rd ed., 807-810. Boston: Hougton Mifflin Company, 2005.

This Advanced Placement World History textbook has comprehensive information about

the Mexican Revolution and how Mexico embraced socialism in the early 1930s.

Burton, Humphrey. “West Side Story.” In Leonard Bernstein, 265-277. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

Humphrey Burton is a British classical music television producer and director. This book

has comprehensive information about Bernstein’s life, his senior thesis at Harvard, and his music. Furthermore, it discusses how Copland, Mitropoulos, and Blitzstein influenced Bernstein’s music.

Swaminathan 35

Collette, Christopher W. “Our salvation must come from ourselves”: Aaron Copland, Carlos Chávez, and American Musical Identity, 1928-1937.” Institute on Performing Arts Librarianship, Pratt Institute. Last modified 2007. http://collettico.com/documents/aaroncoplandstudyexcerpt.pdf.

This document provides detailed information about Copland’s sixty years of friendship

with Carlos Chávez. Moreover, it focuses on Copland’s quest for finding an “American musical identity.”

Copland, Aaron. “Letter from Aaron Copland Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, 1937/07/26.” The

Library of Congress - American Memory Collection - The Aaron Copland Collection ca. 1900-1990. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/copland:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28coplandcorr0765%29%29::.


photographs, and compositions. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge was a patron of contemporary music and a sponsor of chamber music festivals. Copland wrote this letter to Coolidge in 1937 from Tlaxcala, Mexico after attending a chamber music festival. In this letter, he thanks Coolidge for her patronage of contemporary classical music and also discusses Chávez’ contribution to music promotion in Mexico.

Copland, Aaron. “Letter from Aaron Copland Mary Lescaze, 1933/01/13.” The Library of

Congress - American Memory - The Aaron Copland Collection ca. 1900-1990. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/copland:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28coplandcorr0707%29%29::.


photographs, and compositions. Mary Lescaze was a patron of contemporary classical music. After his first trip to Mexico, Copland wrote this letter to Lescaze in 1933 explaining how Mexico and its people affected him personally.

Copland, Aaron. “Letter from Aaron Copland to Carlos Chávez, 1931/12/26.” The Library of

Congress - American Memory Collection - The Aaron Copland Collection ca. 1900-1990. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/copland:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28coplandcorr0162%29%29::.


photographs, and compositions. Carlos Chávez was an eminent Mexican conductor and composer and also a close friend of Copland. This letter written by Copland to Chávez in 1931 illustrates how both the composers felt strongly about creating a unique identity for American music.

Copland, Aaron. “The Story behind My El Salón México.” Tempo 4 (July 1939): 2-4.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/943608.

Swaminathan 36

This journal article is Copland’s own essay about all the details behind the composition of El Salón México. He discusses how he was influenced by the works of Anita Brenner, Frances Toor, and Ruben M. Campos. Additionally, he discusses how Chávez and his Orquesta Sinfónica de México rehearsed for the premiere of the piece in Mexico.

Copland, Aaron, and Vivian Perlis. Copland - 1900 Through 1942. New York: St. Martins /

Marek, 1984.

This autobiography of Copland with Vivian Perlis providing the historical interludes is an excellent and thorough book about Copland from 1900 to 1942. Perlis is the Founding Director of the Oral History Program for Americans at the Yale School of Music and is an expert on musical history. The book covers Copland’s childhood in Brooklyn, his education in Paris, his earlier compositions, and his teaching experience at Tanglewood. Furthermore, it discusses how his mentors including Nadia Boulanger, Serge Koussevitzky, and Igor Stravinsky influenced his music. It also considers the musical impact Copland had on Bernstein.

Copland, Aaron, and Vivian Perlis. Copland - Since 1943. New York: St. Martins Griffin, 1989.

This part 2 of Copland’s autobiography also written with Vivian Perlis providing the historical contexts covers Copland’s life since 1943. Perlis is the Founding Director of the Oral History Program for Americans at the Yale School of Music and is an expert on musical history. Furthermore, it contains vivid photographs of Copland with other musical personalities, music scores with Copland’s personal markings, and insights about Copland from famous artists including Martha Graham, Benny Goodman, and Alberto Ginastera.

Crist, Elizabeth Bergman. Music for the Common Man: Aaron Copland during the Depression

and War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Elizabeth B. Crist is a musicologist at the University of Texas at Austin. This book provides detailed information about Copland’s leftist feelings and also discusses how Copland learned about the Mexican dance hall, the Mexican melodies, and how the Mexican composers, Chávez and Revueltas, influenced him.

Department of Latin American and Puerto Rican Studies, Lehman College, City University of

New York. “Puerto Rican Emigration: Why the 1950s?” Puerto Rican Migration. http://lcw.lehman.edu/lehman/depts/latinampuertorican/latinoweb/.

This website provides detailed information about the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917 that

provided U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans. Furthermore, it illustrates graphically the increase in the rate of Puerto Rican migration to the main land in the 1950s compared to the time period before World War II. This is attributed to the change in the economy of Puerto Rico and the resultant rise in unemployment on the island.

Swaminathan 37

Educational Broadcasting Corporation. “Aaron Copland: About the Composer.” American

Masters. Last modified July 11, 2005. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/aaron-copland/about-the-composer/475/.

This website contains a brief overview of Copland’s life, his compositions, and his

musical contributions as a teacher, writer, and world traveler till his death in 1990. It also has important factual data such as key dates, names of musicians Copland associated with, and a timeline as to how his music evolved.

Educational Broadcasting Corporation. “Leonard Bernstein: Reaching for the Note.” American

Masters. Last modified September 6, 2006. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/aaron-copland/about-the-composer/475/.

This website contains a summary of Bernstein’s life, his compositions, and his musical

contributions as a teacher, conductor, and writer. It also contains significant data including important dates and personalities Bernstein associated with and a timeline of his achievements. The focus of this website is his life and music; therefore it only briefly touches upon his political activities.

Frame, Craig S. “Mexican Repatriation - A Generation between Two Borders.” California State

University San Marcos, Department of History. Last modified 2009. http://public.csusm.edu/frame004/history.html.

This website provides extensive information about the Mexican Repatriation of the

1930s. Moreover, it discusses the key personalities behind the Repatriation and also provides details about the Harris Bill. It also contains some touching photographs of people of Mexican origin who suffered Repatriation.

Gann, Kyle. “Oh, to be popular!” American Mavericks. Last modified 2012.

musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/essay_gann03.html.

Kyle Gann, is a Professor of Music at Bard College in New York as well as an author of several books and scholarly articles. This article provides excellent information about the rise of both modern music and populist music in America. Furthermore, it chronicles Copland’s contributions to the growth of indigenous music in America. Grutzner, Charles. “Bronx is Deadliest of Teen War Areas.” New York Times (New York), May

10, 1950. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

This newspaper article from 1950 depicts some of the gruesome details of the New York City teenage gang wars. It also discusses how the Police Department tried to curb the violence between various youth gangs. Furthermore, it contains information about the different types of weapons the gangs used during their attacks on each other.

Swaminathan 38

Justice Policy Institute. “Gangs in New York City.” Justice Policy on Gang Violence. http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/07-07_Ch1_GangWars_GC-PS-AC-JJ.pdf.

Justice Policy Institute is an organization that seeks to better the lives of people by ways

other than internment. This document contains extensive information about gang violence in New York in the 1950s and also discusses the many ways the law enforcement tried to reduce the violence amongst teenage gangs.

Key, Susan. Telephone interview by author, December 11, 2012.

According to Susan Key, former musicologist for the San Francisco Symphony, it is impossible to attribute El Salón México entirely to Copland’s political leanings. Key however explains that Copland’s involvement with the Pan American Association of Composers with the focus of creating an American identity for classical music is important but does not detract from the obvious political significance of El Salón México.

Koch, Wendy. “U.S. urged to apologize for 1930s deportations.” USA Today, April 5, 2006.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-04-1930s-deportees-cover_x.htm.

This 2006 newspaper article provides information about the forced raids and deportation of people of Mexican descent during the 1930s. Koch also depicts her detailed interviews with many Americans of Mexican origin who were subjected to the atrocities of Repatriation.

League of Composers. “League of Composers / ISCM.” League of Composers.

http://leagueofcomposers.org/history/.

The League of Composers website contains information about the development of contemporary music in America including the history, the league’s mission, concert announcements, and new music competitions. As the U.S. chapter of the International Society of Contemporary Music, this is a valuable source to learn about contemporary classical music.

Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company / Boosey & Hawkes. “America.” West Side Story:

Stage Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. http://www.westsidestory.com/site/level2/lyrics/america.html.

This website contains all the lyrics from the musical West Side Story. It also provides the

names of the key personalities behind the production of West Side Story.

The Leonard Bernstein Office. “Leonard Bernstein: The Conductor, The Educator, The Composer, The Person.” Leonard Bernstein. http://www.leonardbernstein.com.

This website, which is maintained by the Leonard Bernstein Office, covers in detail every

aspect of Bernstein as a composer, conductor, teacher, and a human being. His various

Swaminathan 39

compositions, concerts, lectures, and humanitarian activities such as AIDS activism and anti-discrimination crusading are also discussed.

Library of Congress. “About Aaron Copland’s Works.” The Aaron Copland Collection ca. 1900-

1990. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/copland/acintro03.html.

This Library of Congress website that discusses all of Copland’s works is an excellent resource for the essay on American musical history and its great composers. It not only provides the names and dates of the compositions, but also discusses who commissioned the work and what the theme of the piece is.

Library of Congress. “Jones Act.” The World of 1898: The Spanish-American War. Last

modified June 22, 2011. http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/jonesact.html.

This website contains information about the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917. It also contains a photograph of the first administrative board in Puerto Rico after the execution of the Jones-Shafroth Act.

Library of Congress. “Migrating to a New Land.” Immigration Puerto Rican.

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/cuban3.html.

This website contains information about the reasons why Puerto Ricans chose to migrate

to the main land in the 1950s. Additionally, it discusses the lives of Puerto Rican immigrants in various U.S. cities and the racial discrimination that they faced.

Library of Congress. “The Origins of West Side Story.” Leonard Bernstein Collection.

http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/hopeforamerica/causesandcontroversies/songanddance/ExhibitObjects/WestSideStoryOrigins.aspx?Enlarge=true&ImageId=298f223f-da7f-47e9-8ff0-f6016b6ee4d5%3a92f4d7f0-4127-4475-b71e-583e1751c237%3a56&PersistentId=1%3a298f223f-da7f-47e9-8ff0-f6016b6ee4d5%3a9&ReturnUrl=%2fExhibitions%2fhopeforamerica%2fcausesandcontroversies%2fsonganddance%2fExhibitObjects%2fWestSideStoryOrigins.aspx.

The image in this website shows Bernstein’s annotation in his personal copy of Romeo

and Juliet. It also contains information about how the original idea of portraying the feud between the Jews and Catholics was replaced by the conflict between teenage gangs on the streets of New York.

Library of Congress. “Treaty of Paris of 1898.” The World of 1898: The Spanish American War.

Last modified June 22, 2011. http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/treaty.html.

This website contains information about the Treaty of Paris of 1898 that signified the culmination of the war between the United States and Spain. It also discusses the details of the Treaty and how the U.S. was given control of Puerto Rico and Guam, as well as the Philippines.

Swaminathan 40

McKay, Robert R. “Mexican Americans and Repatriation.” The Handbook of Texas Online.

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/pqmyk.

This website discusses the Mexican Repatriation of the 1930s in great detail. In particular, it focuses on the hardships faced by the people of Mexican descent as they were forced back to Mexico from the United States.

Morelock, Bill. “Conscience vs. McCarthy: the political Aaron Copland.” Minnesota Public

Radio. Last modified May 3, 2005. http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/05/03_morelockb_unamerican/.

This website illustrates the turmoil that Copland went through during the McCarthy era

and the 1953 McCarthy Hearing. It also includes a brief transcript from the actual hearing. The article culminates by describing how Copland survived the McCarthy era and how eventually he was honored with the award of the Congressional Medal of Honor. This is a valuable source for the purpose of understanding Copland’s political stand.

Oja, Carol J. “Bernstein’s Musicals: Reflections of Their Time.” In Leonard Bernstein:

American Original, by Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 59-75. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.


Bernstein as a teacher of music, composer, conductor, political and social activist, and humanitarian. Furthermore, it has a gallery of Bernstein’s photographs from throughout his life, newspaper clippings, and copies of musical scores with Bernstein’s markings. Burton Bernstein is Leonard Bernstein’s younger brother. He is an author of various books and also was a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine from 1957 to 1992. Barbara Haws is a music historian of the New York Philharmonic. In this book, Bernstein and Haws have compiled essays about Leonard Bernstein written by several experts. Furthermore, the essays are interspersed by personal recollections by Burton Bernstein. Oja is a Musicologist at Harvard University. Oja’s essay provides key information about the creation of West Side Story that helps the readers have a better understanding of Bernstein’s sociopolitical viewpoints.

Oja, Carol J. “Celebrating the Copland-Sessions Concerts.” American Composers Orchestra.

http://www.americancomposers.org/copland_sessions_oja.htm.

Oja is a Musicologist at Harvard University. This website provides information about the inception of the Copland-Sessions concert series by Copland and Roger Sessions in 1928. Furthermore, it discusses in detail the mission behind the concert series and the different contemporary musical personalities who performed in the concerts.

Oja, Carol J. “West Side Story and The Music Man: whiteness, immigration, and race in the US

during the late 1950s.” Studies in Musical Theatre 3, no. 1 (2009): 13-30. doi:10.1386/smt.3.1.13/1.

Swaminathan 41

Oja is a Musicologist at Harvard University. This journal article explains how West Side Story accurately portrays the problems faced by the newly arrived Puerto Rican families and it focuses on the “diverse demographics and polarized politics” of America in the 1950s.

The Oryx Press. Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics: Hispanic Americans and

Native Americans. Edited by Jeffrey D Schultz, Kerry L Haynie, Anne M McCulloch, and Andrew L Aoki. Vol. 2 of Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics. Phoenix, AZ: The Oryx Press, 2000.

This encyclopedia contains detailed information about the Harris Bill. It also provides

factual information about the personalities behind the Bill and explains briefly the quota system in U.S. immigration.

Parker, Robert L. “Copland and Chávez: Brothers-in-Arms.” American Music 5, no. 4 (Winter

1987): 433-444. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3051451.

Parker is a Musicologist as well as an expert on Mexican composers. This journal article discusses the long-standing musical friendship between Copland and Chávez. It also depicts the similarities in the musical lives and goals of the two composers.

Pollack, Howard. Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man. Chicago, Il:

University of Illinois Press, 1999.

Pollack is a Musicologist at the University of Houston. This book contains a complete biography of Copland, details of his friendship with Chávez and Revueltas, Copland’s leftist leanings, and his mission of creating a unique identity for American music. It also has valuable information about El Salón México.

Pollack, Howard. “Questions on my research about Copland’s El Salón México.” E-mail

message to Ashvin Swaminathan, December 15, 2012.

Pollack is a Musicologist at the University of Houston. In his email, Pollack explains how Copland’s social ideals probably played a role in his composition of El Salón México. Furthermore, he discussed how West Side Story portrayed the issue of Puerto Rican gangs in the 1950s.

Roman, Shirley E. “The Future Status of Puerto Rico: Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy.”

Master’s thesis, United States Navy: Naval Post Graduate School, 1991. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a246205.pdf.

This Master’s Thesis discusses the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917 and the resultant granting

of U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans. Moreover, it explains the ensuing drafting of about 18,000 Puerto Ricans to the U.S. military service during World War I.

Swaminathan 42

Rosenberg, Jonathan. “An Idealist Abroad.” In Leonard Bernstein: American Original, by

Burton Bernstein and Barbara B. Haws, 117-133. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.

This anthology has many essays that offer an excellent and detailed portrait of Leonard Bernstein as a teacher of music, composer, conductor, political and social activist, and humanitarian. Furthermore, it has a gallery of Bernstein’s photographs from throughout his life, newspaper clippings, and copies of musical scores with Bernstein’s markings. Burton Bernstein is Leonard Bernstein’s younger brother. He is an author of various books and also was a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine from 1957 to 1992. Barbara Haws is a music historian of the New York Philharmonic. In this book, Bernstein and Haws have compiled essays about Leonard Bernstein written by several experts. Furthermore, the essays are interspersed by personal recollections by Burton Bernstein. In his essay, Rosenberg discusses how Bernstein believed in the relationship between art and politics and how it affected his musical life.

Seldes, Barry. Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician. Berkeley,

California: University of California Press, 2009.

Barry Seldes’ book not only has a collection of biographical information about Leonard Bernstein, but also contains detailed analysis of Bernstein’s political activities and how they affected his music. Furthermore, Seldes discusses Bernstein’s outlook on cultural integration and how he used his musical compositions to illustrate the turmoil that pervaded during the Cold War era. As the Professor of Political Science at Rider University and an expert in the fields of politics and culture, Seldes offers excellent information about Bernstein.

University of California, Davis. “Farm Labor in the 1930s.” Rural Migration News. Last

modified October 2003. http://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=788_0_6_0.

This website contains immigration data for Midwest and Southwest Americans who moved to California in the 1930s. It also discusses how the arrival of the migrants from other states to California affected the farm wages and the rise in unemployment in the region.

University of California, Los Angeles. “Mexican Immigration to the United States 1900-1999.”

National Center for History in the Schools. http://www.learner.org/courses/.../pdf/Mexican_Immigration_L-One.pdf.

The document in this website offers valuable information about the trend in Mexican

immigration to the United States during the 20th century. It also offers approximate numbers of immigrants in graphical and tabular forms who arrived in the United States from 1900 to 1999. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. “World War I Selective Service

System.” Military Records. http://www.archives.gov/research/military/ww1/draft-registration/.

This website contains information about World War I Selective Service Act of May 1917.

It also provides the actual draft registration cards assorted by various states.

Swaminathan 43

Wells, Elizabeth A. “West Side Story and the Hispanic.” ECHO - a music centered journal 2, no.

1 (Spring 2000). http://www.echo.ucla.edu/Volume2-Issue1/wells/wells.pdf.

Elizabeth A. Wells is a Musicologist from Mount Allison University. This journal article discusses the Puerto Ricans immigration to the U.S. and also how that affected the composition of West Side Story by Bernstein. Additionally, the article depicts the musical relationship between Copland and Bernstein and the former’s compositional influence on Bernstein.

Wise, Brian. “The Gangs of New York.” The New York Sun, September 17, 2007.

http://www.nysun.com/arts/gangs-of-newyork/62756/.

This newspaper article contains information about teenage gang violence in New York in the 1950s and how it was incorporated into the plotline of West Side Story. It also discusses how the creators of the musical conducted research on street gangs to bring authenticity to their work.

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